THE EASE & JOY OF MORNINGS (December 2018)

Join Kozan for “Ease and Joy of Mornings,” December 16—a quiet morning designed to introduce you to the art of zazen. It is an ideal entryway for beginners and even intermediate or long-time meditators who want a refresher course on this “dharma gate of joy and ease” as described by Zen Master, Dogen-Zenji.

Futility and Courage by Roshi Joan Halifax

This excerpt is from Roshi Joan’s new book: Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.

I have a friend who was a dedicated and skillful psychologist, but after years of practicing, he had caved in to futility. In a conversation with me, he confessed, “I just can’t bear to listen to my patients anymore.” He explained that at a certain point in his career, he had begun to feel every emotion his patients were going through, and he was totally overwhelmed by their experiences of suffering. The constant exposure had eventually dried him up. At one point, he couldn’t sleep, and he was overeating to relieve stress. Gradually, he had moved into a space of helplessness and emotional shutdown. “I just don’t care,” he said. “I feel fat and gray inside.” Worst of all, he had begun to resent his clients, and he knew this meant he needed to get out of his profession.

His story exemplifies the negative outcomes of a combination of all the Edge States: what happens when altruism goes toxic, empathy leads to empathic distress, respect collapses under the weight of sensitivity and futility and turns to disrespect with a loss of integrity, and when engagement leads to burnout. Suffering had crept up on the psychologist, and he began to die inside. He could no longer absorb and transform pain to find meaning in his work and his world.

My friend is far from alone in his suffering. Many caregivers, parents, and teachers have confided similar feelings to me. Part of my work has been to address the devastating epidemic of futility, which leads to a deficit of compassion in people who are expected to care.

I have another friend, a young Nepali woman who bucked the odds and turned adversity into strength. Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita, one of the country’s greatest woman mountain climbers, was an hour’s walk from Everest Base Camp in April 2015 when the 7.8 earthquake hit. She heard the thundering avalanche that killed many at Base Camp. She immediately set out to help but was forced to turn back when an aftershock hit.

Pasang’s home in Kathmandu had been destroyed by the quake—but she and her husband, Tora Akita, realized that they had to respond to the loss of life, home, and livelihood that many in Nepal were facing. “I could have been killed at Everest Base Camp,” Pasang said. “But I was safe. I survived. There had to be some reason why I survived. I told my husband, ‘We have to do something for the people who are in trouble.’ ”

In Kathmandu, Pasang and Tora began to organize young people, and hired trucks to bring rice, lentils, oil, salt, and tarps to people in Sindhupalchowk, the region of the quake’s epicenter. She returned week after week to the Gorkha area with roof tin, tents, medicine, and more tarps for the survivors in a number of villages. She hired local people to make new trails across and over landslides that had destroyed existing pathways. She employed hundreds of villagers to bring food and supplies to people who were completely isolated by the effects of the quake and facing the monsoon season without food or shelter.

Pasang was acting from altruism, an Edge State that can easily enough tip toward harm. But in speaking with Pasang during her months of intensive service following the earthquake, I never detected anything in her voice but unlimited goodwill, energy, and dedication. She also expressed a tremendous sense of relief that she and her husband were able to help.

My psychologist friend went over the edge and never found his way back. My Nepali friend stood on the best edge of her humanity. How is it that some people don’t get beaten down by the world but are animated by the deep desire to serve?

I think compassion is the key. The psychologist had lost his connection to his compassionate heart; burnout had deadened his feelings. Cynicism had sent down a deep root. Pasang, though, was able to remain grounded in compassion and let those feelings guide her actions. I have come to view compassion as the way to stand grounded and remain on the precipice and not fall over the edge. And when we do fall over the edge, compassion can be our way out of the swamp.

When we learn to recognize the Edge States in our lives, we can stand on the threshold of change and see a landscape abundant with wisdom, tenderness, and basic human kindness. At the same time, we can see a desolate terrain of violence, failure, and futility. Having the strength to stand at the edge, we can draw lessons from places of utter devastation—the charnel grounds—of refugee camps, earthquake-destroyed areas, prisons, cancer wards, homeless encampments, and war zones, and at the same time be resourced by our basic goodness and the basic goodness of others. This is the very premise of coming to know intimately the Edge States: How we develop the strength to stand at the edge and have a wider view, a view that includes all sides of the equation of life. How we find life-giving balance between oppositional forces. How we find freedom at the edge. And how we discover that the alchemy of suffering and compassion brings forth the gold of our character, the gold of our hearts.

Rev. Joan Jiko Halifax
Abbot, Upaya Zen Center

Read more from Roshi Joan’s new book, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.